Luke MurrayMD, MBA, Pilot, Co-Founder Awesome Inc.

Why Your New Business Is Failing...

1 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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0:51

In this short monologue, Luke Murray argues that new business owners mistakenly prioritize acquiring more customers before their product or service is solid. He claims that most startups have subpar offerings—like a bad lawn care service or terrible cookies—and that focusing on customer acquisition only exposes these flaws. Murray advises founders to first improve their product and ensure strong customer retention, using the "leaky bucket" metaphor: a business should stop losing customers before scaling marketing. Once the offering is compelling enough that customers stay loyal and don’t switch to competitors, only then should the business invest heavily in promotion.

Chapters

Almost all new business owners think they need more customers, and almost all of them are wrong. And the reason I feel that way is because if you're a brand new business owner, your product or your service probably sucks. So instead of trying to get as many new customers as you possibly can to find out about your shitty lawn care service or your terrible cookies, just make your cookies better. You should be getting customers with the sole purpose of getting actually good at your product or service. And then once you don't have a leaky bucket, meaning someone jumps in and they never want to get their grass mowed from someone else, or they never want to eat cookies at any other cookie shop, then you can start telling the world about your product or your service.